NUMBER OF APPLICANTS A RELIEF TO OFFICIALS

Interest in ambulance worker positions strong despite lower pay

Escondido’s new lower-cost model for dealing with medical emergencies passed a huge test recently when 190 people applied for 24 open ambulance worker jobs, city officials said this week.

Such a large number of applicants was surprising and alleviated any concerns that significantly lower pay would make it difficult to attract enough quality candidates, fire Chief Mike Lowry said.

Seeking to expand ambulance service at a discounted price, Escondido officials decided in November to veer from the city’s longtime model of having all emergency medical technicians cross-trained as firefighters.

Instead, the new ambulance workers are being trained to only handle medical emergencies, not rescues or many types of vehicle crashes. City officials said such an approach makes sense because 80 percent of emergency calls in Escondido are for medical problems.

The pay for the new ambulance workers will be about $47,000 per year, instead of the $80,000 to $110,000 a typical cross-trained firefighter earns in Escondido. The change will make the annual price of the service expansion $1.2 million instead of $2.6 million.

“I was pleasantly surprised we had so many people apply,” Lowry said.

Mayor Sam Abed said the large number of applicants vindicates the City Council’s decision to lower the pay.

“All the claims critics have made that we’re jeopardizing public safety were completely false,” Abed said. “We’re saving $1.4 million a year, and we still have more quality applicants than we can hire.”

Abed said Escondido was reversing mistakes that cities across California and the nation made based on pressure from labor groups to adopt emergency service models that were too elaborate.

“A lot of these overkill services have been union-driven,” Abed said.

The labor union representing Escondido’s firefighters raised concerns about the new model before it was adopted last month. They said “dual-trained” personnel was still the optimum approach, but also said they supported the city’s move because it would allow a significant expansion of emergency services in Escondido.

Lowry said the field of 190 was narrowed to 74 based on the results of a written test. Twenty-four of those 74 will be selected based on interviews, a medical simulation and a physical test.

The first 12 chosen will begin training this month and begin responding to live emergencies in February, Lowry said. The second group of 12 will begin training after that, and they will be on the job in March, he said.

The expansion will increase the number of ambulances the city operates during daytime hours from four to six, and increase the number of ambulances operating at night from three to four.

Escondido has struggled to keep up with call volume since 2009, when the city laid off 10 emergency medical technicians during a budget crisis blamed on the recession.

Lowry said Escondido has typically been unable to handle about 50 ambulance calls a month, forcing the city to rely on surrounding cities — most often San Marcos — for help.

The expansion plan also includes hiring three cross-trained firefighters, which will allow the city to add a long-awaited engine company to the Del Dios Road station. That station opened in 2008 with only an ambulance because of city budget shortfalls.